Posted!

Join the Conversation

Comments

Welcome to our new and improved comments, which are for subscribers only.
This is a test to see whether we can improve the experience for you.
You do not need a Facebook profile to participate.

You will need to register before adding a comment.
Typed comments will be lost if you are not logged in.

Please be polite.
It's OK to disagree with someone's ideas, but personal attacks, insults, threats, hate speech, advocating violence and other violations can result in a ban.
If you see comments in violation of our community guidelines, please report them.

Math is the same, but how SCS teaches it is changing dramatically

August 2, 2017 - Teacher Anita Harris listens to Lindsay Herrera (not pictured), of Shelby County Schools, professional development, during a math session at Kate Bond Middle School on Wednesday. SCS has an intense focus this summer on preparing teachers to teach content. In the days leading up to school, educators are spending full days learning the new curriculum and enforcing best practices on state standards.(Photo: Yalonda M. James/The Commercial Appeal)Buy Photo

But Shelby County Schools is overhauling the way it's taught, a change students will notice in their first classes as the new school year begins today.

Eureka Math and Expeditionary Learning

The county school district is implementing its first large-scale curriculum changes, affecting both math and reading and language arts for elementary and middle school, since the merger with Memphis City Schools in 2013.

The district adopted Eureka Math and Expeditionary Learning for reading and language arts, for a total cost of $3.6 million, after piloting both in about 18 schools last year.

Buy Photo

August 2, 2017 - (Left to right) Teachers Candice Eddins, Diamond Butler and Francesca Hall work together during a math session at Kate Bond Middle School on Wednesday. Shelby County Schools has an intense focus this summer on preparing teachers to teach content. In the days leading up to school, educators are spending full days learning the new curriculum and enforcing best practices on state standards.(Photo: Yalonda M. James/The Commercial Appeal)

With changing standards at the state level, as well as the move to the harder TNReady test, the district had to change its curriculum to match expectations, SCS Director of Curriculum and Instruction Rita White said.

Both programs aim to expose children to grade-level material even if they're behind, White said, and encourage critical thinking.

"...Even though it’s more difficult for you, it’s easier for your child."

Eureka Math, created by non-profit Great Minds, Inc., pushes students to understand the concepts behind the step-by-step instructions to solving problems. It's heavy in word problems and writing.

At the third grade level, a parent sheet explains, instead of just memorizing that 4 x 3 = 12, the students see an image of four rows of three bananas and have to complete the sentence, "There are __ bananas altogether."

But the program's had its detractors, including in the Germantown Municipal School District after Eureka Math was implemented two years ago, where parents complained the program was overly complicated.

SCS is preparing for some initial resistance from parents.

"It’s very confusing to parents because they’ll say, 'I don’t understand this, I didn’t learn it this way," White said. "Parents need to understand, even though it’s more difficult for you, it’s easier for your child."

Teachers react to Eureka: "It's different."

"I am not going to sit there and say we did not gripe about this, because we did," Eddins said.

Both teachers piloted the program in their class last year. They heard from parents confused about why there were only workbooks and no textbook, and why all the sudden, there was a new way to learn math.

But the teachers found ways to be flexible within the curriculum, which pushed students to work together in groups. They learned to take better notes, and had to pay more attention. They learned to work to understand problems that seemed beyond their reach.

Buy Photo

August 2, 2017 - Teachers Lavina Dedeaux, left, and Octeria Mack study curriculum during a math session at Kate Bond Middle School on Wednesday. Shelby County Schools has an intense focus this summer on preparing teachers to teach content. In the days leading up to school, educators are spending full days learning the new curriculum and enforcing best practices on state standards.(Photo: Yalonda M. James/The Commercial Appeal)

"It’s more challenging, which I think is a good thing, but it’s not necessarily something our students are accustomed to seeing," Hall said.

Now the self-proclaimed Eureka Math experts, Eddins and Hall helped lead professional development for teachers to understand the curriculum they would soon be teaching.

Eddins gave an example that involved dividing fractions. Students will have to draw out long, rectangular boxes. A fraction of 1 3/8, for example, would be drawn out into one long box with eight parts colored in, and another long box with just three parts shaded. Eddins then drew lines around boxes indicting division.

"It is very different from what they are used to, and it is an adjustment that they are going to have to make," Eddins said.

Extra supports for teachers and parents

Cori Hamner, the district's director of professional development and support, said feedback after the pilot program revealed teachers felt they needed more professional development to teach Eureka Math effectively, so the district ramped up its offerings this summer.

In summer 2016, SCS offered teachers 825 sessions across the district. This summer, that jumped to 1,170. Teachers received stipends if they attended, but it was not mandatory until the week leading up to the first day of school.

"We have heard from teachers too about needing resources to help parents," Hamner said.

The district will send home newsletters and homework help sheets to parents to ease the transition, and online resources are available through Eureka. In the pilot programs, the district also hosted tutoring sessions for parents to better understand the content.

A push for literacy

With the intense focus on word problems, Eureka Math could have carryover to improve students' reading skills. But the adoption of a new reading and language arts curriculum, which will begin immediately in the middle schools and in a few months at the elementary level, aims to push students above recent years of dismal test scores.

On 2015 tests, the most recent available, only 32.6 percent of SCS students in grades three through eight were reading at or above grade level.

With TNReady testing that forces students to write more, the new reading and language arts curriculum has students digging deeper into texts and understanding them before trying to answer questions, White said. The tendency, White said, is to meet students where they are. But too often that doesn't pull them forward, she said. The new curriculum aims to expose them to grade-level material, even if it involves a teacher reading it to them before they read it on their own.

The curriculum also makes a shift toward reading more non-fiction books than fiction. That can benefit poor and minority students in particular, White said.

"The fiction materials we have, the kids don’t look like them," she said.

Non-fiction can also open students' eyes to new topics, like the rain forest.

"The idea is that you build their knowledge about the world while they’re learning to read," White said.

Reach Jennifer Pignolet at jennifer.pignolet@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @JenPignolet.